


Cornflowers

by LokianaWinchester



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokianaWinchester/pseuds/LokianaWinchester
Summary: Octavius contracts Hanahaki, which causes people whose romantic feelings are not requited, to cough up flowers. Eventually this leads to death, unless the person of their affections returns this love.





	Cornflowers

Octavius coughed. His throat had been scratchy since he had come to life that night, but clearing it had not helped and now his breathing was becoming more and more difficult.

He coughed into his hand. The scratching in his throat was gone.

And in his palm lay a single deep blue cornflower petal. Perplexed, he looked at it, before letting it fall to the ground. This was surreal why would he cough up a flower petal? He decided it was probably easier to forget about it, rather than look for an explanation. This seemed like a matter he would not find an answer to. Most likely it would never happen again.

“Octavius!” He turned around. Jedediah was riding towards him, grinning like mad. Octavius had no idea what the cowboy was getting up to, but seeing that smile, already made worth whatever was going to come.

“Get up here, they’re coming!” For a second Octavius doubted his last thought. It might not be worth it after all, but Jedediah held out his hand to him to help him get on the horse behind him, smiling cheekily; there was no doubt in his mind anymore.

Not a second after he sat firmly in place, he heard the clank of metal. Something had hit his chest armour. Looking back, his hand tightened around Jedediah’s upper arm.

“Go! Go, you fool! What did you do?”

A horde of wild indigenous people was charging at them and Octavius was almost thrown off the horse when it started running as if its life depended on it, which it probably did.

“I just stole a bit of their poison!” Jedediah screamed over his shoulder. Octavius rolled his eyes, letting his head slump against the cowboy’s leather-clad back.

“Hey, stop that, your helmet tickles my neck, I need to concentrate!”

With a fond smile Octavius sat up again. Eventually they hid behind a loose skirting board.

Hastily Octavius got off of the horse and peered around the edge of their hide-out.

Their chasers were nowhere to be seen.

He turned back around to Jedediah, who was smiling at him again.

“You had to do that, didn’t you? You just couldn’t resist?” Octavius sighed in a mocking tone. Really, he did not mind being hauled on a horse and abducted by Jedediah in the least. He would just like it to be in a different context.

Looking at Jedediah now, feelings washed over Octavius. Unwanted feelings, unneeded feelings, unrequited feelings. The lively, humorous sparkle in Jedediah’s blue eyes made his heart rate speed up, the excited smile that let his teeth shine through, sent Octavius’ mind reeling for a fitting description of his feelings. He was absolutely overwhelmed. These feelings had been coming for a long time, he realised now, but they had run him over, the second he crawled out of the crashed car in the park, looking for Jedediah.

He had seen his lifeless form before his eyes, gotten ready to find his friend dead. And then he realised he was not his friend. He was so much more. For years every time they had seen each other, as scarce as these occasions were, their fighting and quarrelling had become more friendly and now that they admitted that, Octavius realised he was in love with Jedediah. Panic had risen in him when he did not find him, he had run a hand over his face, wiping off bits of snow and when he looked around again he saw him. Crawling out from underneath a massive heap of snow, Jedediah was alive and well and Octavius had thanked Jupiter as he ran towards him and wrapped his arms around him. That moment had been fulfilling. He had been happy. In love.

But that moment had also been the start of his pain. From that moment on, every glance he threw Jedediah’s way was paired with a dull pain in his chest.

Jedediah’s expression of pure mischief as he pulled out a vial with what was supposedly poison, did not help that at all. At once, the scratching feeling in his throat was back and he tried to clear it, but it would not go away. There was no way he would cough now, for fear of spitting out another petal.

“You alright?” Jedediah asked, a concerned look overtaking the cheeky smile.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He smiled encouraging, trying to swallow the feeling, the urge to cough.

Luckily, Jedediah seemed to believe him. Later, back in front of his men just before sunrise, when he was out of sight for the cowboy, he allowed himself to cough. He dared not look at his hand for a few moments, but his fears were affirmed when he saw that he held another bright blue petal.

It went on like this for weeks. After a few days, Octavius tried to stay away from Jedediah for a while. He realised the flowers were in some way related to him beyond the shocking similarity in colour of the petals and Jedediah’s shirt. Every time he ached for Jedediah to be more than a friend to him, every time he looked at him or even thought about him, he would feel the now familiar scratching his throat. He had a feeling that Jedediah knew something was up and over the weeks it became more and more difficult to hide his condition.

The first time two petals came up, they were sitting at the fireplace in front of the cowboy’s tent. It was cosy and for a second Octavius let his thoughts wander to where they could be. To what he might do. The concept of just holding Jedediah’s hand or leaning his head against his chest were almost enough to send tears to his eyes.

And petals into his windpipe.

It started to hurt, his heartache was complemented by this physical pain, but there was nothing Octavius could do. He wished he could, because it was getting worse and worse but the thoughts, feelings and accompanying petals kept on coming.

“Are you alright?” was a sentence he started to hear more than any other. It was alarming how people realised that something was wrong with him, even though he tried to conceal it as best he could.

After some more time, the pain crept down from his throat, settling in his chest, making breathing considerably more work than it should be. Octavius was suffering and yet nobody knew why. He did not even know himself. Was this a sign from the gods, was he not supposed to love Jedediah?

Was this a punishment for loving another man? Octavius knew for a fact that his people had no problem with such relations, but still once the thought had crossed his mind, he could not shake it. He was surely being punished for something, so he took his punishment like the brave soldier he was and lived with it.

The number of petals grew, too. Soon it was three, then four. It became more difficult to cough them up, resulting in longer coughing fits, which alarmed the people around him even more. And yet every night he went back to be frozen for another day. As the days grew longer and the nights shorter, he began to anticipate sunrise more and more. Every minute he spent without pain, even in his unconscious, frozen state, was precious to him.

Jedediah had started visiting him in the camp. By now, Octavius was sure that he knew, something was seriously wrong with him. They were sitting under a tree in the shade, bantering as they usually did, throwing playful insults back and forth. It felt like home, Octavius realised. He risked a sideward glance at the cowboy and saw was met with an intense stare from the blue eyes. Almost cornflower blue. Octavius’ breath hitched.

The pain in his chest was swelling, both emotionally and physically. His breaths became more difficult as Jedediah’s eyes seemed to stare into his soul, seemed to take up Octavius’ whole world. He was getting lost in them.

Then the cowboy’s gloved hand came up to ghost along Octavius’ jaw and then Jedediah was leaning in.

The kiss was unexpected. It was not unwanted, quite the contrary. There was barely anything Octavius wanted more, but the pain in his chest seemed to explode, because surely this was a spur of the moment kind of thing. Jedediah would never want that, Octavius knew. There was no way he meant this in the way Octavius wanted him to mean it.

It was terrible and great at the same time. The closeness of Jedediah’s body against his comfortably warmed him and burned him up alive at the same time. The lips on him were both the most tender caress and the most violent shame.

Octavius felt sick. He pulled back and a moment later turned his head, retching. He felt miserable, his eyes pressed shut, wiping a wrist across his lips. He had never thrown up before and he never wanted to again, but this would not be granted to him, he reckoned as he stared blankly at the cornflower head in the grass next to him. When he heard Jedediah shuffle around next to him, he crumpled the flower in his fist, before turning around again.

“I’m sorry.” Jedediah hesitated. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to.”

Of course. After all, Octavius had been right.

“Don’t worry about it.” He replied weakly.

“You just threw up, dude,” Jedediah pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” Octavius insisted, meeting the cowboy’s eyes and again, like so many times before, his lie was accepted.

“I’m still sorry,” Jedediah emphasised.

With a slight nod, Octavius acknowledged it. They sat together in silence until it was time for Jedediah to head over to his own exhibition. The look he threw at Octavius over his shoulder as he left, was worried. Inquiring. He knew Octavius was not well.

The pain was omnipresent.

Every time Octavius came to life, he cursed his entire existence. His chest felt like it was swollen, sore, inflamed, but there was nothing, no visible symptoms of an illness. The first time he came alive and realised, his mind had not been all the way shut off during the day, because of the excruciating pain, he felt the need to sleep. He had no idea what could force his body to disregard magic except maybe for equally strong magic.

This was another first. Due to their daily resting period, most exhibitions never slept in what they were told was the traditional way. But now Octavius understood what it meant to be tired. He had been fatigued before, absolutely exhausted, but now he knew how it felt to be bone-tired. He made his way over to the steps of the well at the side of the courtyard and sat down, leaning back. He was feeling miserable. His body was aching all over, starting in his chest going into his fingertips and toes. His head was throbbing, he felt weak.

“Octavius!” Jedediah was running across the yard towards him.

Their relationship had been strained since the kiss. They never talked about it. It would only end badly. Sometimes they went several days without seeing each other and honestly Octavius did not know if he hurt more when Jedediah was there or when he was not.

But now the cowboy came running towards him and for the first time Octavius did not have the power to pretend he was alright anymore.

“You alright?” That question again, as if he had not already answered it by his appearance. Octavius opted to stay quiet. Lying was out of the question. There was no way Jedediah would believe him. He might be naïve sometimes, but he was not stupid. But admitting to his illness was also not an option. He felt that if he did, he would succumb to it. So silence was his chosen answer. And Jedediah understood it loud and clear.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, clearly contemplating what to do. “C’mere! I’m gonna help you.” Octavius smiled weakly at this show of optimism.

“How?”

Jedediah looked off into the distance, then ran away with a hastily shouted “stay” in Octavius’ direction.

He leaned back against the stones behind him, closing his eyes. He dozed off, but when footsteps were approaching, he jerked up, which he regretted immediately. A sharp pain shot through his head, an agonised groan left his lips and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Jedediah was back with his horse. An arm on Octavius’ arm, he helped him up and together they heaved him onto the back of the horse. He was thankful he did not have to walk, unsure if he would even have made it ten steps.

“We’ve gotta find Gigantor. Or Roosevelt. Somebody to get us around.” Jedediah grumbled under his breath as he climbed up to sit in front of Octavius. “Hold on tight,” he said. As he looked back at Octavius, eyes full of worry, he continued. “Can you do that?”

Octavius did not even try to fight the extreme nausea, just leaned over so as not to throw up at Jedediah.

“Did you just… Did you just… was that a flower?” His secret was out.

Octavius nodded weakly and tightened his fingers on the cowboy’s leather vest.

“What is this sickness?” Jedediah muttered, but then they were underway.

Octavius felt his perception slip, he dozed off several times, only to be pulled back into reality when Jedediah spoke.

His entire field of vision was framed by a blue shadow and the pain that clouded his mind almost drowned out even Jedediah.

When they came to a halt, Octavius nearly fell off, then he felt something tightening around him.

“What’s that,” he slurred. Vaguely he felt Jedediah’s hand on his cheek. It burned terribly, but at the same time his chest contracted in a dreadful coughing fit.

“It’s my lasso. You’re not falling off this horse on my wa – is that blood? You’re coughing up blood, dude that’s not good – oh shit, another flower!”

Octavius was barely aware of the cowboy’s exclamations, he felt like he was holding onto both the man and life itself with all his power. When they started galloping on to Jupiter knows where, Octavius lost his consciousness.

* * *

 

The pain was gone.

The blue shadow over his vision was lifted.

Jedediah was there.

Everything around them was bright and beautiful, a field of flowers.

Jedediah was sad.

Octavius wanted to run towards him, but no matter how fast he moved, the cowboy was never within reach. The only thing that changed was the field. The flowers were orange, red, pink, yellow, then he saw a cornflower. The further he ran in the fruitless attempt to reach Jedediah, the more cornflowers there were until he came to a halt, panting, trying to catch his breath. When he wanted to go on, he could not move his feet. Jedediah seemed so near now, but his feet were firmly fixed to the ground. He looked to the ground to find out what did this to him.

The cornflowers were winding themselves up his legs, as impossible as that seemed, forcing him to stay where he was, immediately his hand went to his sword, but it was immediately tied to his hip by a way too strong stem, a beautiful flower head settling across his fingers. He began to panic.

“Help!” he shouted. “Jedediah! Please, help!” But the cowboy seemed deaf to his cries and pleas.

“Help,” he pressed out as the stems reached his neck, beginning to choke him. “Help.”

* * *

 

“Help?”

The pain was back and stronger than ever before. Octavius wished he could sink back into unconsciousness, but he saw Jedediah’s face above him which drastically changed his opinion.

“There is no help for him. This curse, millennia old, cannot be broken. He will surely die.” Weakly, Octavius looked in the direction this new voice came from. The bust of a Japanese woman was speaking.

“Curse?” left his lips, before he properly formulated the thought.

“It is called Hanahaki. Spitting flowers. A deadly affair. I assume, it came to life with everything else in this museum by the power of the tablet”

Octavius closed his eyes, uttering that one word had exhausted him beyond measure. Above him, he heard Jedediah speak up.

“And there’s nothing that can be done? And why is he cursed anyway?”

“Well, that I can tell you. He is in love. The curse befalls those, who love, but without having this love returned. It is enough for them to even believe, that this is not the case for the curse to manifest. He is in the final stages of the accompanying disease now. He might survive until sunrise, but his death is imminent.”

Octavius felt Jedediah’s fingers tighten around his arm.

“But there is one thing,” the bust continued. “If the person he loves, really loves him back and he knows it, the symptoms can be completely reversed and he will be cured. I wish you luck.”

“Well shit,” came another voice. Larry was there. Octavius felt himself getting picked up and shortly after put down somewhere. His head was lifted up gently.

“Hey,” Jedediah said. Octavius’ head in his lap, he sat crouched over him, one hand cupping his jaw. He started to violently cough. His ribs felt sore, but the coughing only stopped when he spat out another cornflower.

“You don’t have much time, Octavius. I promise I’ll find whoever you love. I just want you to live. Please.” He could hear the tears in Jedediah’s voice.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Octavius protested. He knew Jedediah did not feel the same way, so why should he make a fool of him and admit to dying of his failed love for his best friend?

“Why not?” Octavius smiled at these words. The cowboy was as stubborn as ever.

“Because you don’t love me.” Before he knew it the words had left his lips.

“Of course I love you. I really do, but that’s not the point, Octavius, we have to find whoever you love because otherwise you’ll die!”

He should have known that Jedediah would say that. If only to add to the punishment this all was. Of course he would say he loved Octavius, because he meant it platonically.

“No,” Octavius said simply, closing his eyes.

For a few moments it was quiet, the throbbing of his head and chest in agonising pain was the only thing he registered, then he heard a sob.

“I love you,” Jedediah’s thumb began to caress the burning skin at Octavius’ face. “God, I love you so much, but I’ll gladly step aside if you only tell me who you love. You don’t want me and that’s fine,” his voice became louder, “hell, you threw up when I kissed you, but I just want you to live!”

Something did not sound right. Jedediah had something really wrong.

“What?” was the only thing Octavius could come up with.

“I love you,” Jedediah repeated.

“What?”

“Stop playin’ games and get talkin’. It’s not like you didn’t know. I kissed you and you barfed all over the place.”

“Wh–”

“Don’t you dare say ‘what’ one more time,”

“But you didn’t mean it,” Octavius coughed out.

“No, I did. But you threw up and I didn’t wanna look even more like an idiot.”

Octavius stayed quiet. This could not be right. He closed his eyes again, the touch of Jedediah’s thumb against his cheek was soothing the pain in the rest of his body.

Soothing! No minute ago it had felt like it was burning him.

“You love me.” He looked up at Jedediah, noticing the tear-tracks on his face.

“It’s you. Jedediah, it’s you. I love you but I didn’t think –”

“You didn’t think I did so you decided to die,” Jedediah said. Then in a split second his face lit up and a blinding grin spread on it.

“You do? I – oh!”

Octavius brought his hands up to pull him down until their faces were only inches apart. As the pain in his chest vanished, he managed to lift his head and close the rest of the distance between them.

Jedediah was eagerly responding, fingers gripping into the hair at the nape of Octavius’ head to keep him in place. This kiss was nothing like their first one. It was so much better. He smiled against his cowboy’s lips and –

As the sun rose, both of them froze.

Coming alive, kissing somebody was not something, Octavius would ever have expected himself to do. But here he was in Jedediah’s arms, their lips still pressed together. Hesitantly he pulled back and opened his eyes… to complete darkness.

“Why is it dark?”

“Well, it’s night, so…” Jedediah replied, laughter in his voice. Octavius did not deem this worthy of an answer and slowly stood up, feeling his way around. Until he saw a tiny stripe of light from above.

“Come over here! There’s light!” he exclaimed. He heard Jedediah starting to run, then a loud thump.

“Jesus! What is this?”

“Just come over here, I –”

“Aah!” They yelled in unison when they were blinded by the sudden light streaming down at them.

“I had to put you away, ‘cause you were frozen making out,” Larry’s voice came from above.

“And you just put us in a drawer?” Jedediah yelled. Octavius put a calming hand on his arm. Larry looked uncomfortable enough as he lifted up the folder they were standing on.

A few minutes later, they were back at the roman courtyard. Larry shot them a smile, then turned around. After all he had a museum to care for.

Sheepishly, Octavius turned around to look ad Jedediah. He had the fraction of a second to prepare himself for impact as the cowboy came running at him, knocking him over in a wild hug.

“I can’t believe you were so stupid,” he laughed out. Octavius scoffed.

“Right back at you, senseless cowboy,”

Instead of an answer, Jedediah gave him a kiss and that was a compromise Octavius could accept for as long as they continued to come alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! If so, feel free to leave kudos/comments <3


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